


Shelter from the Storm

by CptEmie



Series: Fire at the Heart of the World [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Almost Kiss, F/M, Flirting, Romance, Sexual Frustration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 04:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4550928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CptEmie/pseuds/CptEmie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Started from a drabble prompt: a one-shot about the beginning of Constance Trevelyan's romantic relationship with Blackwall. A few OCs mentioned in passing, but it shouldn't distract from anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter from the Storm

This was why they traveled in pairs. This, exactly. The thunder had come on suddenly, rumbling so deeply that they crest of the hill Constance was standing on seemed to shake beneath her. Or perhaps it was more than ‘seeming’, because Blackwall leapt forward and clutched one arm around her waist to hold her steady. “Let’s not have you become a lightning rod, my lady.” He pulled her under the trees, the rain lashing down on them in sheets and whipping debris around them as they ran.  
There was a cave not too far away, one they’d cleared of darkspawn just two days before. They kept low to the ground, lightning crashing offshore and waves rising violently. Bent under tree branches, the Inquisitor followed the Warden west – skittering down and down – to the mouth of a deceptively large cave.  
They were soaked to the bone despite it only having been a matter of minutes in the storm. Dropping her pack at her feet, Constance quickly started peeling her robes off. “You too,” she ordered, knowing full well that Blackwall was gaping at her unceremonious stripping. “Neither one of us is any good to the mission if we get sick.” She was left in a thin shift to keep her modesty, and a pair of short patchwork pants that tied tightly just under her knees. She set to work finding splinters wood for a fire while Blackwall hesitantly unstrapped his armour.  
Bits of battered chest, remnants of tent, and half-spent torches were compiled into a small mound, and Constance knelt over it with her hands outstretched. She forced her attention into her palms, warming them through until her fingernails began to flicker. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Blackwall discard his heavy, quilted coat. Focus, Constance! She chastised herself, pulling her eyes from the mat of tangled chest hair now clearly visible beneath his lazily tied tunic. In her mounting distraction, flames had begun kissing her fingertips. With a subtle tip of her hands toward the pile of debris, a fire jumped to life.  
“Impressive,” the Warden chuckled. He’d seen her do it countless times but it never failed to fascinate him. She commanded the elements so easily – so gracefully – it was beautiful to watch. She was beautiful to watch. Maker’s balls, Blackwall groaned to himself. He bit his fingernails into his palms for composure before stepping forward to join her by the fire.  
Digging through their packs in silence, they took inventory: they had as much as two meals worth of food between them, two healing draughts, a single poultice, and no lyrium left. She would have to be careful how much magic she used – no careless fire stoking or speeded drying of their clothing. She trued to quell the feeling of satisfaction that welled up at the knowledge that the gruff, guarded warrior would have to keep his shell off a while longer. She crept closer to the flames, her shift and pants were soaking but she distrusted herself around him in only her smalls and breast band.  
“My lady, you’re shivering,” he pulled the canvas shell off of a nearby abandoned tent and wrapped it around her shoulders.  
“I’m fine,” she insisted, but made no attempt to stop him from settling his arms tightly around her shoulders to warm her.  
There was nothing to do about it now, Blackwall reflected. Instinctual chivalry had brought him, as it always did, right to her side. He felt her nestle into the space under his arm, one of her small hands found his forearm and she held him to her. Every muscle in his body tensed. The worst thing would be relaxation. The most dreaded feeling was comfort. But it was a fight not to wrap both arms around her – to lean her head against his chest – to kiss her. He stared into the fire.  
“We’re going to be here awhile,” she observed finally. The storm outside was growing quickly and steadily worse.  
“Do you think the others made it to camp?” He refused to look at her, struggling with his own self-control when he felt her fingers twine themselves around his wrist.  
“Probably not.” She thought about tangling his fingers through hers and her voice caught in her throat. “I’m sure Varric and Dorian are holed up on the eastern shore.” She chuckled to herself at the image. “I’m sure Dorian is proving a very captive audience for whatever bedtime story Varric is making up.”  
Blackwall had to laugh, too. “Something sordid, no doubt.”  
“Undoubtedly.”  
“What shall we do to amuse ourselves?” She turned up to look at him, freckles standing out from the way her skin paled in the flickering reflection of fire on cave walls. The flames seemed to lap at the gold flecks in her green eyes.  
Maker’s balls… He bit his lip as discreetly as he possibly could. There were no less than a dozen horribly inappropriate responses to that question that immediately leapt to mind. This woman would be his undoing. This temptress…this goddess…this angel… No. Focus. Control yourself.  
“Tell me of being a Warden?” It was a familiar request. A sheltered childhood had led her to the reading of heroic tales, and the Wardens had a library of heroes for the ages. They were the fairy tale knights of her youth.  
“Tell me of being a mage?” His traditional counter-request.  
When she pursed her perfect lips at him, he turned his head and tried to hide a smile. “I have no heroic tales, my lady, you know that.”  
“I know you say you do not. And you know I do not believe you.” But she felt immediately that this was a day he would not budge. Reluctant to pass the hours in silence – for nothing warmed her the way his voice did – she relented. “What would you like to know? Though I warn you, there was no glamour in the Circle.”  
“More glamour than a country boyhood spent wrangling sheep and cutting wood.” An insignificant morsel of information about his past in an effort to keep her curiosity at bay. “Surely you had friends?”  
“Few.” She answered truthfully. And then, with a smile. “It may shock you to know that your Lady Inquisitor has never been very well liked.”  
That was, indeed, a shock. “I don’t believe that at all, my lady.”  
“It’s true,” she nodded. “Before the Inquisition? I believe I could count my friends on one hand.” She held up a fist and ticked them off. “My brother Keller, our guard Ser Colling, another mage in the Circle, and Sister Sylvia that I accompanied to the Conclave.” Sylvia. Kind, dear Sister Sylvia who had prayed with her and been her conscience.  
“Another mage?” He asked absently. “If you were any vaguer, I’d think you meant a lover.”  
“I—” Her voice strangled and the thought died on her tongue.  
“Maker…” Blackwall squirmed uncomfortably and hung his head. “Forgive me, my lady, I assumed—”  
“That I was a maid?” She blushed deeply, thankful for the cover of firelight. “Did you think that because I am young, or because Andraste’s chosen should not have a sullied past?”  
“I did not mean to be disrespectful.” He was acutely aware of his mistake. She lifted herself from under his arm and drew the makeshift blanket around herself. Shame was the least of what he felt.  
“It’s alright,” she tucked her knees under her chin. Why was she so embarrassed? Surely he had had countless lovers and would have countless more. But perhaps that was it – she had had one. Just one. “We were children – foolish – ” She was still a child to Blackwall, she knew that. Barely better than half his age. A life spent little in society and less in good culture. A childhood of being obscure and plain: the least of the Trevelyan children. Not an heir. No arranged marriage. No promised future with the Chantry. Obscure, plain, forgotten Constance.  
“I doubt you were ever very foolish.” He had not moved away from her. The arm she had withdrawn from was now simply between them. His fingers fidgeted, battling between the desire to take her hand and the itch to find some spare wood to carve.  
“Oh, Maker,” she laughed. His faith in her seemed endless. “You must think the world of me.”  
“I do, my lady.” The words were out of him in an instant.  
“And yet you will not look me in the eye to say it?”  
It was a challenge, he knew that. She was daring him, testing his constraint, wondering what it would take to coax him forward.  
Steeling his muscles against the instinct to reach for her, he met her gaze. “You are everything that is good and honest in the world, and you know it.” His voice was calm, but his heart ached.  
Maker, his eyes. She was defenseless against them. Stormy blue like the sea, and deeper, too. Piercing and comforting, sad and weathered. Their gentleness betrayed him. “Blackwall…” she began, but did not know how to continue. She had gotten lost in the blue.  
“My lady?”  
“Please. I’ve asked before. My name is Constance.”  
A weak smile to hide a sigh. “You are Lady Trevelyan, Inquisitor and Herald of Andraste.”  
“Maker take you, Blackwall,” she growled in frustration. “What in Andraste’s holy name do I have to do to get you to call me by my given name?”  
He chuckled. There were a great many things she could do to draw her own name from his lips – but now was not the time to be thinking about that, not with his damp trousers clinging like a second skin. The spark in her eyes was unmistakable. It was the same glint she had in battle when she sat her sites on her prey.  
He was her prey.  
The thought made him weak. “My apologies,” he savoured the word as it formed, “Constance.”  
No prayer ever sounded so sweet. Her eyes fluttered closed of their own accord. Her breath caught. She couldn’t be sure but she may have leaned in to him as he said it. Weeks and weeks of trying to convince him – it was a month or more now in fact, and this was the first time she had ever heard him speak her name. It was bliss to – wait, had it really been more than a month? Truly? For a name? Enough was enough. Enough was blighted ENOUGH! The ecstasy at hearing her name blurred into unadulterated frustration in little more than a blink. There they were, crouched together in a cave while they waited out a miniature hurricane. Huddled side-by-side in front of a magical fire with nothing to do but be in each other’s company. Leaned toward each other, eyes locked. On their knees, not but a few inches from each other, in a furious stalemate. She had had enough.  
“Why won’t you kiss me?” She asked finally. Blunt. To the point. Like that day on the battlements after they’d arrived at Skyhold.  
Whatever he had expected her to say, that was not it.  
“My lady—” He stammered.  
“Constance.”  
“My lady.” His voice rose and he lost the ability to keep her gaze. The pebbles at his feet became fascinating. “You deserve better than a poor old sod with nothing to offer.”  
“No matter how miserable it makes you.” She observed.  
“Aye.” He nodded slowly. He had already said too much, but there was no taking it back now.  
Did he despise himself so much that he would never allow himself to be happy? That he would deny her happiness, too? “Maker’s breath…” she muttered. Her frustration mounted, taking her to her feet. “We could die right here, you realize that, don’t you? Darkspawn could find a crack in the walls. Spiders could descend from an unknown pocket of the ceiling and poison us. A nest of deepstalkers might attack without warning.” Her heart pounded at the possibilities. “Venatori might have watched us enter and could be plotting a course of action as we speak. Red Templars might seek shelter from the storm.” She pulled at the hair on her scalp, tugging curls loose from her neat bun. “My blighted hand might destroy us all!” She wasn’t sure if she was shouting or whining, but she was pacing fiercely around the fire. “Everything could end in a heartbeat, and you’re worried about the impropriety of calling me by my given name.”  
He groaned, almost growling. “My lady, please.” She wasn’t sure when he had stood up, but she walked straight into him, beating her tiny fists against his broad chest as he towered over her. “My lady?” She would not stop. She was reeling, wounded and confused. If he did not feel for her, why did he not say so? “Constance, please!” He closed his hands over her fists – they enveloped her, held her to his chest. A trick of the light, or maybe the smoke, made it seem as though he had tears in his eyes.  
Something in his resolve slipped as she started to fume. She had fistfuls of his collar; she was right in his face. “Maddening!” She was saying, “You are completely maddening!”  
Funny, he thought the same thing of her.  
“If you don’t feel anything for me,” she forced herself to look him in the eye. “Then just tell me so.” Lightning crashed outside and rain pelted every available surface. Thunder rumbled in time with her pulse.  
Blackwall’s head spun. Their conversation had escalated so quickly that he was barely keeping up. “I could not tell you that, my lady.” A breathless heartbeat away from pulling his lips down to hers, they heard the stomp of boots on stone and heard the squabbling of two harried voices.  
“There you two are!” Dorian didn’t notice Blackwall’s hands on her waist, or her hands on his chest – didn’t register that he had brashly interrupted a very important moment. Blackwall and Constance let fall mutual sighs of disappointment.  
“If you would consent, my lady, there is a small chore I should hope to take care of before we leave the Coast.” His breath was hot on her ear, grazing her neck. His voice was low and more intimate than he would have liked to admit.  
She smiled, smoothing his tunic where she had been crushing it a minute before. “Of course,” she whispered.

It was four days later that the party returned to Skyhold – Blackwall had ridden ahead and managed to beat them home by a day and a half. Constance had gone straight to her quarters upon arriving, on a quest for a hot bath and clean clothes. Instead, she found Blackwall on her balcony. He kissed her – Maker, he had kissed the breath out of her – and stayed with her well into the night. Stealing more kisses, holding her close by the fire, going to fetch her a hot dinner while she bathed.  
It was well past midnight bells when she began to nod off on his chest. He swept her up in his arms and deposited her on her bed, tucking her plush blankets around her. She picked her head up off the pillow when he started to move away, and gave him a tired smile. “I don’t get a kiss good night?” She asked.  
He had chuckled at that, feeling the rumble of long-repressed happiness bubble up in his chest. He knelt over her and brushed his lips against hers. “Good night,” he breathed.


End file.
